Nissa
Feminine
Nissa is the back half of a good many names and a whole name in Scandinavia's folklore. A nisse is the small household spirit of Norwegian and Danish farms — the one who looks after the animals if he is fed and makes trouble if he is not. Whether any American Nissa comes from that is doubtful, but the word is real and the coincidence is worth knowing.
How old is the name Nissa?
Nissa first appears in US birth records in 1968 — 57 years ago. The typical Nissa alive today was born around 1985, making them about 40 years old. About 1,500 people named Nissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Nissa most popular?
Nissa peaked in 1974, reaching #1464 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 13,478 places below that high. See the whole 1974 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Nissa
English makes names by clipping more freely than most languages, and it clips from either end — Beth from Elizabeth, Tony from Anthony, and Nissa from any of half a dozen longer names. A clipping that gets given on its own then behaves like a full name and accumulates its own history, and after a generation nobody remembers what it came off. The Scandinavian nisse is a separate line entirely: a barn spirit who wears red, expects a bowl of porridge at midwinter, and has quietly become part of Christmas iconography across the Nordic countries.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Three roads and no proof. The Scandinavian nisse is a genuine folklore word, itself thought to be a pet form of Nils, so a Nissa on that road would be distantly a Nicholas. The second road is subtraction: Nissa is what is left of Janissa, Nerissa, Denisa or Anissa when the front comes off, and English has always made names that way. The third is that it was simply built from a pleasant sound. No documentation distinguishes them.
Pronouncing Nissa
NISS-uh
NISS-uh, two syllables, stress at the front, the double s crisp and the first vowel short. The spelling is entirely unambiguous, which is unusual in a name with no settled origin.
Nicknames for Nissa
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1968
- Most girls named
- 197468 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1464reached in 1974
- Change vs 2024
- −44.4%5 in 2025, from 9
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Nissa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Nisse in Norwegian — related form
- Nissa in Swedish — same name
Nissas among us
people named Nissa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Nissa
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Nissa
- #14942
- Nissa on the 2025 chart
- #937
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Nissa went to 5 girls in 2025, but Nyssa is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 23, which makes it the 937th most-given girls’ name of the year — 14,005 places above the chart.
- Nyssa18
- Nissa5
About 1 girl in 69,881 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Nissa itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Rubbie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Nissa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rubbie climbed just as high around 1923, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rubbie's path sketches the road Nissa is walking now.
Nissa sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Nissa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Nissa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Five letters and two syllables, said correctly by everyone on first sight.
- It stands on its own without needing a longer name behind it.
- The double s fixes the vowel, which the single-s spellings of similar names do not.
- Nissa, Nisa, Nyssa and Nesa are all in use and all sound alike, so the spelling gets dictated.
- There is no documented origin, and the Scandinavian connection is a coincidence rather than a line of descent.
- It reads as a short form to people who know Nerissa or Anissa, and they will ask what it is short for.
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What they receive
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Nissa
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Nissas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Nissa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Nissa?
- Nissa is one of 2 recorded spellings. Nyssa is the more common one — 18 births in 2025 against 5 for Nissa.
- How popular is the name Nissa in 2025?
- Nissa ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Nissa?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Nissa — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Nissa with classmates?
- Nissa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Nissa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sophya#14942 · Lyllian#14942 · Sarrah#14942 · Mellanie#14942 · Kally#14942 · Dyanna#14942 · Morgann#14942 · Sabryna#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Nissa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Nissa and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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